One is considered to be one of the best young managers in world football, having managed FC Porto, Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur despite being only thirty-six years of age. The other has won the Premier League with Blackburn Rovers as a player and has been a coach at Tottenham since 2008. It is strange how, the first manager referred to, is unemployed, having been sacked by Spurs and replaced by his former assistant Tim Sherwood. This is not the first time that AVB has been relieved of his duties as a manager of a Premier League team, as he was sacked by Chelsea in 2012. While many may agree that his sacking had a positive impact on Chelsea as they won the Champions League that year, was his sacking by Daniel Levy warranted?

AVB’s record in the league up to his sacking was 8 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses. Sherwood’s record so far is 8 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses. It is fair to say that Sherwood’s record is better as he has notched up the same amount of wins as AVB in four less matches. That alone may be enough to convince many that Spurs are better under Sherwood. They certainly are playing better, as they have moved from a 50% win percentage to an impressive 66% win percentage, but why?

After the world record transfer of Gareth Bale from Tottenham to Real Madrid, AVB had around £85m to compensate for the loss of Bale. He used this money to buy midfielders Christian Eriksen, Etienne Capoue and Paulinho, defender Vlad Chiriches, winger Nacer Chadli and forward Roberto Soldado. Despite the plethora of creative and attacking talent acquired in addition to those they had before, Spurs only scored 15 goals in 16 matches. Under Sherwood, Tottenham have scored 22 goals in the 12 league matches. Perhaps the biggest reason for this is the return of Emmanuel Adebayor to the starting line-up after only featuring once under AVB. Adebayor has scored 8 goals in 13 matches this season while Soldado has 6 in 23, with only 2 being from open play. So it seems that something as seemingly simple as player selection has played a major role in the Lilywhites’ improvement under Sherwood.

Along with the inclusion of Adebayor, Sherwood has changed Spurs this season by altering their formation and playing style. Spurs have adopted a 4-4-2 formation under Sherwood and the players seem more comfortable playing in this system with its direct approach as opposed to the more patient approach that was used in AVB’s 4-5-1 system. Spurs have scored more than 2 goals in a league game 4 times this season, all under Sherwood. It seems every comparison somehow leads back to goal scoring, which is understandable, as goals win games. AVB’s team were all too poor in that aspect, as in his final match, a 5-0 hammering at home from Liverpool. Luis Suarez’s two goals put him on the same amount of goals as the entire Tottenham squad, despite playing 5 less matches.

It must not be forgotten that just last season, AVB led Spurs to their record points total, despite finishing 5th. Some may say that this was due to the performances of a certain Gareth Bale and they may have a point. But, as it relates to this season, the sacking of AVB and the subsequent hiring of Tim Sherwood was justified.

Its such a poor article with a number of inaccuracies about basic info for example, Sherwood was not his assistant, he had NOTHING to do with the first team (outside of leaking rubbish to the press).

AVB wasn’t Fired, he left on mutual consent, there are reports that after the 5-0 and the forcing of players he didn’t want as well as being TOLD to play ADE when he was being disruptive to what AVB was attempting to implement given the players he DID NOT want, this lead to a conversation that ended with AVB saying “if you want to run the team then go for it, I’m done”, I can’t blame him, nothing like a meddler to mess with your head.

Which is why the club statement said by mutual consent and not that he had been fired. There are a few people in the Spurs community that I know with credible contacts that have suggested as such, and it fits with the gradual collapse.

Spurs are playing some of the most dire football on the planet under Dim, there is no structure or plan, if are has a good game we are ok. Its lazy, wrong and ridiculous to suggest that the football is better under Dim than under AVB.

The players raw quality are puling us through, the coaching is a joke, the unsettled dressing room is there why else would Vertonghen and Lloris both come out about moving in the summer? Because life is great under Dim?

Unlikely!

Put injury count has also gone up because the training has deteriorated into general fitness and a “kick abaatt”.

Levy had no choice after his bluff was called, he tried others but was left with the macarb sneaky, backstabbing Sherwood in charge, the equivalent of a bell boy as head chef of a michelin star restaurant. FFS!

Articles like this unfortunately just show that there are more clueless fans than even my cynical self thought possible.

Oh no the famous use of winning percentage (with uneven amunt of games played) to make outlandish points! No comparisons made of the quality of teams Spurs played in the 16 games under AVB and the 12 games under Sherwood. Conveniently mention that Spurs got spanked by Liverpool 0-5 under AVB but omitting that they got spanked 1-5 under Sherwood by Man City.
Of course no comparison is made of Spurs 12 games in 2012=2013 season in the same time-frame as the 12 games under Sherwood because that would actually show us that after a similar rocky start based on his Win-Draw-Loss (8-2-6) in 2012-2013 season in the first 16 games, AVB in his next 12 games had a better result (8-4-0) than Sherwood in the same time (8-2-2).

Can you at least wait when Spurs have played the same amount of games under Sherwood before crowning him king of White Hart Lane.

Win percentage is an awful stat when he hasnt even coached half a season let alone the toughest stretch of games for Spurs has yet to come till this saturday.

You talk about the Bale money which is confirmed that AVB did not want a good majority of the men brought in. So that whole paragraph is garbage.

Can we give the Ade thing a rest already! Does anybody remember how bad he was last year? I mean seriously he was terrible, pretty much the same cancer that saw him booted out of Arsenal and City. The only reason he played with sherwood is because Levy was paying him to much money to have him simply sit in the club boxes with BAE at side. Sherwood got LUCKY with Ade, he was all but out to door for chicken feed in January.

We will see how well he has done at the end of the year. Lets face it even if We do get CL he wont be the coach next year.